Random Thought...

Haha I was just sitting here, going through my collection of Baby-Sitter Club books and Sweet Valley books (got a few I was missing for Christmas), thinking about how this all started. Like, when I first started reading the books. I don't remember what my first Sweet Valley book was (although I know it was one of the Sweet Valley Kids books), but I'm pretty sure my first Baby-Sitters Club book was Super Mystery #2 Baby-Sitters Beware!. It wasn't my first AMM book (I had been reading the Little Sister series for ages by then), but it was my first Baby-Sitters Club book, which then got me reading the rest of the series.

I remember picking it up because I was perusing the slightly older section of my local library for a change, and the cover and title got my attention. I don't remember my library having the world's greatest selection of books, but it had enough, because I've read most of the Baby-Sitters Club books.

But that was the public library. I know my school library had a bunch of Baby-Sitters Club books, but oddly enough, my most vivid image of my school library is of the Sweet Valley High shelf. I remember seeing those books (my school library had the larger hardcover library editions) and thinking, "Those are for older kids. Way older than me." haha

As such, I didn't end up reading any Sweet Valley High books until I was in high school (and by then, I was reading them for shits and giggles and fun frivolous beach reading 'cause I could get them for a 1$ each at the used bookstore near my house). I had read tons of Sweet Valley Twins, and of course, all the Baby-Sitters Club. But not Sweet Valley High. Those were TOO HARDCORE!

Funny the memories that stick with you haha

Baby Sitters Little Sister #17: Karen's Brothers

Tagline: There are too many boys in Karen's family!

BOYS
A is for Awful
B is for Barf-breath
C is for Crazy

Karen has three older brothers, and sometimes they are a pain. They won't take Karen to the movies. And they don't let her play football with them.

Karen is so mad she decides not to talk to any boy -- not her daddy or even the boy pets in her family. And maybe then Karen's brothers will stop treating her like a girl!

Alright. I can't believe I read this. Another Karen book so soon? I was kinda hoping that there'd be more of Charlie and Sam in it, but there wasn't really =/

Anyways, this one opens with Karen at school. Her pretend-husband Ricky is busy playing with Bobby, and Karen is upset at being neglected. At recess, she decides to try to make things better by asking him if she can join in and play football with him and his friends. Ricky laughs and says no, because she is a girl. Girls can't play football. Karen gets mad, yells about how she plays football all the time with her brothers, and then stomps off.

That weekend, she's at the big house, meaning with Kristy and all her brothers. At first, everything goes well. Karen has a great time hanging out with her big family, playing dress up in Kristy's clothes, and even hanging out with Sam and Charlie and their big kid friends. However, it all changes when Sam and Charlie and their friends decide to go out to see a movie. Karen and David Michael immediately get up to go, but are quickly shut down. Karen assumes that it's because she's a girl, and decides not to talk to boys anymore.

She goes to school on Monday, and recruits Nancy and Hannie to join her in hating boys. They even make a "We Hate Boys" club. Nancy isn't mad at any boys, and Hannie's only mildly annoyed with some of them, but they decide to go through with it. Originally Karen tries to get them to stop talking to all boys ever, but eventually settles on letting them do whatever they want outside of school. But in the meantime, as long as they're in school, there will be no talking to boys at all.

At first, the boys don't really seem to care. Pamela, Karen's enemy, decides to take advantage of the situation and creates the "We ♥ Boys" club. She and her friends start talking to Ricky and the boys, being especially nice to them, giving them treats and what not. Ultimately, Pamela hopes to steal Ricky from Karen. Well, the boys start noticing the attention, and start liking it. Karen's not impressed.

Eventually two weeks go by, and Karen's at the big house again. There, her brothers invite her to play football. Karen's surprised, because she thinks she's been excluded this whole time because she's a girl, and is happy to hear that her brothers think she's great at football. She decides to stop hating boys. But the story's not over yet: Karen needs to apologize and win Ricky back!

As an apology, Karen decides to hold a Brother's Day party, and invite all her brothers and Ricky and her dad. She makes them presents, and bakes cookies and has punch. She then apologizes to everyone and everything is all well. Ricky is there too, and they make up and decide to try not to fight anymore. Ricky even says that Karen can play football with him at school.

At school, Karen and Pamela get into a fight, and Karen bets Pamela that she can't play football. Of course, Pamela makes a fool of herself. It doesn't matter though, because soon everyone is playing, and Karen and Ricky are stronger than ever!

Random Thoughts:

• The seriousness in which Ricky takes Karen and their pretend-marriage is frightening haha I don't know of any second graders who would take things that seriously. I could see Karen being all for it, but for Ricky to humor her this long? That boy is a saint!
• I had a pretend-boyfriend in kindergarten. We would pretend that we were cats and hang out on the play structure together. But I stopped having pretend-boyfriends by the time I entered grade 1.
• It's plain to see that Charlie and Sam don't want to take their little siblings out to the movies when they're hanging out with their friends. Even if they weren't going to be seeing anything inappropriate, it's a whole different scenario of actually being responsible for your younger siblings, rather than them just happening to be around.
• Charlie and Sam are pretty good sports about it all though. They make obligatory appearances to Karen's party, which is nice.
• Hannie and Nancy need to grow backbones. Seriously.
• I can't tell if the "romance" between Karen and Ricky make me take Mary Anne and Logan more seriously, or less seriously haha 

Baby Sitters Little Sister #15: Karen's in Love

Tagline: Karen and Ricky sitting in tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

Karen + Ricky = Love

At first, Karen and Ricky were enemies. But now they like each other. They are even going to get married.

Only now Karen and Ricky are in a big fight! First Karen puts gum in Ricky's desk. Then Ricky calls Karen Four-eyes.

Will Karen and Ricky make up... or break up?

Karen gets home from school one day, and is excited to see that she got mail. Opening it, she's dismayed to see that it's a birthday invitation to Pamela Harding's birthday party. Pamela is her enemy! Karen calls up Nancy and Hannie, and discovers that they too received invitations. They decide that since they're going to be forced by their parents to the party, they would just get her really yucky gifts that she won't like, or baby things. When they get to school, they find out that Pamela was forced by her parents to invite the entire class. Ricky decides that he'll give Pamela a snake (rubber or alive).

However, come the day of the party, Karen is disappointed to see that everyone got dressed up and got Pamela nice presents. Even worse, Ricky got Pamela something really cool: purple suspenders. Plus he's nice to her at the party. Karen feels bad because Pamela gives out really awesome goody-bags that even include an actual 1$ bill, while the bracelets she gave Pamela are worth only about that. Overall, the party is a failure.

The next day, Karen is still mad at Ricky, and decides to stop talking to him. Since she's ignoring him, Ricky decides to be partners with Pamela that day. This prompts Karen to write Ricky a mean note, which he then turns into a spitball to throw at Karen. This goes on for awhile. Ricky and Karen keep doing stuff to each other, and soon the whole class is taking sides (girls with Karen, boys with Ricky, with Pamela and her friends siding with Ricky). This upsets Karen because up until now, she and Ricky had been planning on getting pretend-married, and obviously now they won't.

So all in all, Karen's having a miserable week. She wants to stop fighting with Ricky, but can't figure out how. Soon, it's Valentine's Day. Karen's made Ricky a super-big elaborate Valentine's Day card. She can't wait to see if he gave her something, but unfortunately, she has to go through the entire day first. Her mom and Seth have a special red and pink Valentine's Day breakfast. Upon arriving at school, Karen's the first one in the classroom, and quickly delivers Ricky's special card before anyone else arrives. Then she's on pins and needles til the afternoon.

When she opens up all of her Valentines, she's sad to see that there isn't one from Ricky. She's just about to fall into a pit of despair, when she looks over and sees that Ricky's opening the card from her. He gets a funny expression on his face, but then reaches into his desk and pulls out a big card for Karen. It reinstates the fact that he wants to pretend-marry her, and that they're no longer mad and fighting. Karen decides that they should get married at school on Monday, and goes around to tell everyone. Her friends are all happy for her, except for Natalie Springer, who is sad about having received so few Valentines.

Karen spends the weekend at the big house, planning her wedding with Hannie. Upon discussing a few things with Ricky on the phone, Karen finally figures out something nice to do for Natalie: she asks Natalie to play the music for the wedding. Natalie's been taking violin lessons, and can only play "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", but that's okay. Everyone agrees to get all dressed up and the wedding is a go.

Come Monday, Pamela and her friends tease Karen a bit, but for the most part everything goes well. Everyone shows up wearing their nice clothes, Natalie plays for the wedding and Audrey officiates. When it comes time to exchange rings, Ricky's embarrassed to admit that he doesn't have one. He does, but he forgot it at home. Karen says it's okay and bails him out with her plastic spider ring. Everyone chants for Ricky to kiss Karen, but they get all embarrassed. Bobby, Ricky's best friend, deflects from the situation and kisses Pamela on the cheek. Pamela freaks out, and with everyone's attention diverted, Ricky kisses Karen on the cheek and she deems it love.

When they get back inside, Ricky realizes that the ring was inside his desk the whole time. It's gold with a blue stone. He puts it on her finger, and Karen considers them to be officially married. She briefly contemplates changing her name, but decides that she's Karen Brewer forever.

Random Thoughts:

• This book takes place simultaneously with BSC #41. This book has 20 chapters. The first 10 take place before Kristy baby-sits in #41 (Karen references these events in that book), but then the last 10 chapters take place after.
• It was really irresponsible of Karen's mom to let Karen buy a birthday present for little more than a dollar. If Karen had thought things through, she would've gotten a more reasonably priced present, but something so out of style for Pamela, like a lame baby doll, or a toy truck (she could tell her mom that Pamela was a tomboy).
• Karen's dumb (but only 7 years old) to get mad at her friends. Obviously their parents would make them attend the party and bring decent presents.
• Pamela is obviously a rich bitch, but I'd be interested in seeing her from someone else's perspective. After all, Karen's rich too. In fact, aren't a lot of her classmates well-off? Stoneybrook Academy is a private school. But yeah, I can totally see Karen having a huge elaborate themed birthday party with hired entertainment, just like Pamela did.
• I don't remember why Ricky and Karen were enemies, and what changed between them. Is it bad that I'm kinda curious and wish I had some of the other Little Sister books?? >_< haha
• I totes don't remember Hannie getting pretend-married before Karen. In fact, I don't remember her being pretend-married at all, but that's probably because her pretend-husband goes to a different school. Her pretend-husband? Scott Hsu, who has been mentioned a couple of times in passing Kristy books, since he lives in the neighbourhood. I believe his brother is Timmy. I want to know more about these Hsu boys (are they Asian? I totes think they're Asian!)

Baby-Sitters Little Sister #1: Karen's Witch

Tagline: Is Karen's next-door neighbor a witch?

Back Cover: Is she Mrs Porter... or a witch?

Karen lives next door to an old lady named Mrs Porter. Mrs Porter wears long black robes and has wild gray hair. Her black cat is named Midnight. No wonder Karen thinks Mrs Porter is a witch!

Mrs Porter is having a meeting at her house. Karen is sure the meeting is for witches.

Are the witches going to cast a spell on Karen? Or will she be brave enough to send them away- once and for all?

Our first Little Sister book takes place in a single weekend. Here, we learn all about Karen Brewer, and how she leads a double life with her two divorced families. It's Friday night, and she's just been dropped off for her weekend at her dad's. Her big stepsister Kristy is baby-sitting for her, Andrew and David Michael. At the door, Karen finds Midnight, her elderly neighbour's cat. Karen is convinced that her neighbour is a witch. Determined to find proof, Karen attempts to stay up, spying out the window, only to fall asleep and have a nightmare about her neighbour. Kristy tells her it was just a nightmare, but Karen knows better. She then spends the night in Kristy's bedroom.

The next day, Karen spends all day with her best friend Hannie, spying on poor old Mrs Porter. She overhears Mrs Porter talking about a meeting at 12 o'clock, and determines that it must be a witch meeting at midnight. She finds an old alarm clock and sets it to wake her at 11:45. The next morning, she wakes up to find that she slept through the whole thing! This convinces Karen more than ever that Mrs Porter is a witch, because she must have put a spell on the clock and the whole house to have her meeting.

It's now Sunday, and cars have started arriving and people are going into Mrs Porter's house. Some people have books, others have papers, and some have brought casseroles. It's Mrs Porter's meeting! She meant noon, not midnight! Karen decides that she can't let a whole gathering of witches and warlocks ruin her town and take over the world, so she convinces Hannie to come with her to break up the meeting. Karen believes that when they face the witches and save the day, the mayor will reward them and give them medals and parades.

They knock on the door, and Mrs Porter, surprised, allows them to come in. Karen then announces to the entire room that she knows that they're all witches and warlocks, and that she won't allow them to cast spells and do evil things to her and everyone. To Karen's surprise, her maternal grandmother is there. Grandma Packett is not amused, and is in fact outright mortified. Turns out it was a just a meeting of the Stoneybrook Gardeners Club!

Karen gets taken home, and Watson and Elizabeth give her a stern talking-to. They make her write an apology to Mrs Porter, and to promise never to spy again. Of course, Karen knows better. She knows that maybe this time it was a harmless gardening meeting... but Mrs Porter is really a witch, and Karen will get her next time!

Random Thoughts:

• So I just happened to own the first Little Sister book, because it came in a large lot of BSC books that I purchased last year. I have a couple of others, so I'll do them when their time comes, but don't worry about these being a regular thing.
• I had completely forgotten that these books have illustrations in them!
• I read these books first when I was child, before I read the Baby-Sitters Club books. Since switching over to the BSC books, I haven't actually sat down and read any of the Little Sister books. I've briefly skimmed through a few at used bookstores out of nostalgia, but never for more than a few minutes. So it's interesting reading this one now. I'm glad that the first book takes place at the Big House, because now I get to see Kristy from a different perspective. Of course, it's a perspective that worships her, so we still see her in a favourable light, but it's still interesting.
• I didn't realize that Mary Anne was mentioned in this one either. Kristy at some point goes shopping with her, and Karen mentions her by her full name. Part of me is curious to see how much Mary Anne and Kristy and the rest of the Club are mentioned, and if their drama is ever referenced in the Little Sister books. But I don't wonder enough to actually want to go out and purchase the Little Sister books haha
• Karen is such a brat and gets away with murder. That was horrible what she did to Mrs Porter's meeting and friends. I'm kinda pissed that Watson and Elizabeth don't punish her more. Maybe if they did, she wouldn't get into so much trouble.
• Mrs Porter is such an eccentric little old lady. I mean, I can see how someone like Karen would get the wrong idea, and to be honest, I probably would have made up stories too as a child, but I would've kept them as just that: stories. And I would have never faced her. Mrs Porter is clearly lonely, as she's happy and delighted when Karen comes over. I don't know if it amused her that Karen thought she was a witch, or crushed her little old lady heart. 
• Karen is totally a mean girl. If she was 16 instead of 6, you better believe that she'd be as bad as Regina George. Hannie knows it's wrong to spy on Mrs Porter and she knows that they're going to get in trouble, but Karen is all (and this is verbatim), "Hannie. Don't you always do everything I say?" and when Hannie points out all the other times Karen's gotten her into trouble, Karen just dismisses it and says that she knows best. Earlier in the book, the two overhear a Mrs Porter talking to her cat Midnight, saying something about a meeting at 12 o'clock. Karen takes this to mean a witching meeting happening at midnight (cuz of course, witches), but Hannie is pretty sure she means Midnight the cat and the meeting is at noon (a time for normal old people). Karen quickly shuts Hannie up and dismisses her notions... only when Hannie turns out to be correct, Karen claims it was all her idea and that she knew it all along! Ugh, she is the worst!

Baby-Sitters Club Re-Read

So I have decided that among my 2016 goals this year, I'm going to start a re-read of The Baby-Sitters Club. Obviously I won't get through them all this year. In fact, it'll probably take me a few years, since I'm doing them in publication order, and I'm going to do all the books: the regulars, the mysteries, the super specials, the portraits, the Friends Forever series, California Diaries... I even have a couple of Little Sister books that have found their way to me through mass-buying. But don't expect many of those haha Anyways, we'll see how far I get haha